Tuesday, March 16, will be the birthday of James Madison, who is often referred to as a founding father championing open government. Most often you’ll see this quote referred to him: “A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps [...]
Filed under: 2. Doc state of mind | Leave a Comment »
For Sunshine Week the American Society of News Editors honored citizen FOI warriors for their efforts to open up their governments. Check out the bios and you’ll see that they are active citizens from Florida, New Jersey and Virginia who saw problems in their local governments and wanted answers. This is what open records are [...]
Filed under: 1. Records that matter | Tagged: Local gov | Leave a Comment »
The Congress Elementary School District in Arizona has sued four citizens to prohibit them from requesting any more records, according to an injunction filed Jan. 28. According to a summary by the Goldwater Institute, which is representing the citizens, the school district has repeatedly violated the public records law and refused to provide basic information, [...]
Filed under: 4. Finding records | Tagged: Education | 2 Comments »
A lot of people assume that just about every kind of record held by schools and universities are secret because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but it’s not true. While schools have twisted FERPA beyond its intent (see great series by the Columbus-Dispatch), you can get directory information, budget information, and serious [...]
Filed under: 1. Records that matter, 3. Access law | Tagged: Education | 1 Comment »
Recently I did a Q&A with the Poynter Institute about The Art of Access and I mentioned the part of the book that talks about some experiments I did on effective request letters. Which works best – friendly or threatening? Honey or vinegar? In the Q&A I explain that the threatening letter results in greater [...]
Filed under: 5. Request strategies | Leave a Comment »
A state employees union is trying to use privacy fears to keep the Daily Oklahoman from being able to find government employees who are sex offenders. The paper requested a database of all state employees, including their name, date of birth, job description, start date, salary, agency, title and job description. Pretty standard for making [...]
Filed under: 6. Overcoming denials, 7. Electronic records | Tagged: Public safety | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been impressed with the efforts of Veterans for Common Sense to use FOIA for finding out important information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paul Sullivan, executive director, is quoted in our book because of his extensive experience trying to get records out of the federal government regarding how veterans are treated (see [...]
Filed under: 1. Records that matter | Tagged: Military | Leave a Comment »
One great way to get an idea of what agencies value in FOI officers is to look at their job postings. I find them fascinating windows into agency cultures. They don’t tell the whole story, but they give a glimpse. Requesters who understand agency’s perspectives are more effective at getting what they need. For example, [...]
Filed under: 8. Officials' perspectives | 2 Comments »
This morning I talked a little on CNN‘s American Morning show about proposed legislation in some states to make 911 tapes secret (clip). A victim rights person also was on the segment, arguing for the provisions to protect victim privacy. The segment was inspired by a recent Associated Press story on the issue. I made [...]
Filed under: 9. FOI writing & ethics | Tagged: Public safety | 1 Comment »
